On balance, August was unkind to White Sox veteran Andrew Benintendi, as he hit just .253/.290/.347, but there are some signs of him coming out of a self-identified extended funk.
His two-homer, four-hit performance Tuesday night was his fourth multi-hit effort of the past week, and both of his four-hit games on the season have come in the past three weeks. The 31-year-old's commitment to trying to pull the ball in the air as he enters the back nine of his career is the foundation upon which The Benintenaissance was built, and is a statistically appropriate approach for his home park. But his manager thought Benintendi had worked himself into a rut by losing his direction and spinning off the ball in search of pull pop, as will happen periodically with such an approach, and placed his apparent return to form in terms of balancing himself out.
"He’s putting himself in a really good spot to take consistent swings," said Will Venable. "Kind of the precursor to these good swings are some of the hits to the opposite field we saw in Atlanta, where his direction was right and he got his timing right. Now we see him back in front, taking good swings and getting the head out in front."
It's certainly part of it, Benintendi would concede, as he's spoken often to wanting to maintain the ability to spray singles to left field when his first order approach leads to him being pitched away.
"I think it's a lot of things, I think it's not just one thing. If it was, I think it'd be fixed by now," Benintendi said. "The shortstop, for me at least, plays pretty much behind second base. So if I can find that swing to kind of slap it the other way, and if I do it enough, hopefully that means [pitchers] will come back inside or start coming closer to me, so I can pull it, obviously. I mean, I don't think it's a secret. So, this is a cat and mouse game. You kind of have to give up something to get back to it eventually."
But Benintendi has a more general objection with Venable's assessment of his swing, which is really just disagreeing with any insinuation that he's in a settled place.
"I don't think I've been hot one time here," Benintendi said.
Like, this season?
"Like, Chicago. It's been three years now. It's been a frustrating three years."
A strong final two months last year saw Benintendi hit .275/.346/.538 after Aug. 1 and wrap up a 20-homer campaign that led the team, and his recent power outburst has helped keep this year's race interesting, even if he's neither the frontrunner nor the exciting insurgent. But to his point, Benintendi hasn't posted an OPS over .800 in any full month of this season. His 99 wRC+ and .244/.306/.425 batting line, combined with more time at DH than ever before, have made for his most productive campaign in a White Sox uniform, but also not one where it's a given he reaches 1 WAR.
But rather than provide a platform on which to launch more consistent production with a damage-focused approach, Benintendi feels more like his power output is just providing cover for issues he's still trying to address.
"I think the homers shield other things, and I think average-wise, it's been terrible," said Benintendi, before alluding to a year that's seen him hit the IL with some nagging leg issues. "There are some other things I've been dealing with that may play a factor into it too. I don't know."
There hasn't been a power-sapping wrist issue that required a cortisone shot like back in 2023, or repeated discussion of whether he was in the worst slump of his career like in 2024. But between allusion to nagging pain, acknowledgement that the rapid acceleration in stuff quality at the MLB level of the course of his career has forced him to adapt his approach, and a general tone of dissatisfaction with the state of affairs, it's easy to enough to understand how Benintendi lumped this conversation under the larger umbrella of his time with the White Sox.
Fewer intractable reasons exist this year for why he hasn't been able to produce results in line with being the largest free-agent signing in franchise history. But it's rare for a five-year deal to be redeemed in the final two seasons, so at this juncture, Benintendi addressing his performance with agitation rather than resignation is one of his more encouraging qualities.
"That's one of the misconceptions of veteran players, that they feel like they've got it all figured out and they don't want any help," said director of hitting Ryan Fuller. "These guys want to continue to get better and Benny knows what really high production looks like and is asking questions and working really well with Marcus [Thames] and Joel [McKeithan], utilizing the feedback that we have for him. There are things definitely to get him to be a really high OPSer, which he's been in the past."
During this past homestand, Benintendi was reaching beyond that. With his parents in town and the veteran left fielder interested in anyone who could reference how his swing looked in the best years of his career, he decided to put his father to work.
"I've been working with my dad a lot," Benintendi said. "He's seen my swing probably more than anybody, so he's been here this weekend too, tinkering with stuff. So when I get away from here and go back to the house, we're still working on it there too."
Maybe it'll produce what Benintendi actually considers a hot streak, because it would be nice to see what hits the mark for the former All-Star at some point while he plays in this town.
